Your phone shares data with Google and Apple every 5 minutes, Android phones do it 20X more

A new study highlights that the two most used mobile operating systems globally - Android and iOS, share device data with their respective companies about every 5 minutes. It warns that users have no control over this data sharing, which raises some serious concerns for the vast user base.

Tech majors have often been questioned on the type and amount of data they collect from their users. Their answers may not always be satisfying, hence individual researches are always ongoing on one of the most important matters of the digital world. One such study now looks into the data collected by the two biggest mobile platforms - Android and iOS. The study has been conducted by Douglas Leith, a researcher at the School of Computer Science and Statistics, Trinity College, Ireland. It deep dives into the data collected by two tech giants - Apple and Google, from their smartphone user base across the world. The research makes some striking revelations about the two OSes. It claims that the mobile platforms share data from the handsets with the companies even when the devices are not in use. This data is shared about every 4.5 minutes, even when the devices are "minimally configured" and idle.